The tin drum by Volker Schlöndorff
The movie version of The Tin Drum directed by Volker Schlöndorff -twenty years later
after the novel by Günter Grass (1959) - ends as it begins, with a
tribute to the importance of responsibility examined through the eyes of Oscar
Matzerath (exceptional David Bennent), who never grows up. In reality, Oscar symbolizes
every man that keeps going in an uneducated and superficially innocent society,
instead of taking the plunge into a responsible political life. Following Oscar’s
childish eyes, as Günter Grass has mentioned, Schlöndorff just tells
the story on one line. This is the success point of the movie that won both the
Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of that year,
in 1979, whereas its aesthetics partially calls up to German expressionism. Until
today The Tin Drum has the power to
make us reflect upon the past of Nazi history, indicating we are a sum of
multiple perspectives upon our past and present; Grass knows it very well, for
his past reconsideration made him choose the road to his present activism, that
is, give vent to a strong voice against Nazism, German austerity measures and
peoples’ repression. Overall, the sound of the tin drum in the movie is the
counter-balance of this annoying social sleep; the tin drum awakes the spectre
of memory, the importance of which is priceless so as to attain real endurance
and joy.
The movie version of The Tin Drum directed by Volker Schlöndorff -twenty years later
after the novel by Günter Grass (1959) - ends as it begins, with a
tribute to the importance of responsibility examined through the eyes of Oscar
Matzerath (exceptional David Bennent), who never grows up. In reality, Oscar symbolizes
every man that keeps going in an uneducated and superficially innocent society,
instead of taking the plunge into a responsible political life. Following Oscar’s
childish eyes, as Günter Grass has mentioned, Schlöndorff just tells
the story on one line. This is the success point of the movie that won both the
Palme d’Or and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of that year,
in 1979, whereas its aesthetics partially calls up to German expressionism. Until
today The Tin Drum has the power to
make us reflect upon the past of Nazi history, indicating we are a sum of
multiple perspectives upon our past and present; Grass knows it very well, for
his past reconsideration made him choose the road to his present activism, that
is, give vent to a strong voice against Nazism, German austerity measures and
peoples’ repression. Overall, the sound of the tin drum in the movie is the
counter-balance of this annoying social sleep; the tin drum awakes the spectre
of memory, the importance of which is priceless so as to attain real endurance
and joy. 
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